


I Know Your Scars

by RedBubbles



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angela and Ana are mentioned, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Reader is gender neutral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 02:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10066829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBubbles/pseuds/RedBubbles
Summary: A new face has appeared in the halls of the recently reformed Overwatch base. A face obscured from all by a mask of metal and indifference.But it’s a face you know.A face you though had been lost all those years ago in the explosion, a face you’ve traced countless times with shaking fingertips in the throes of post-coitus bliss, and cupped gently as you steal kisses from familiar lips.It’s a face you know, but not a face that wants to know you.





	

You chop the carrot into slices with practiced ease, the movement ingrained into your brain as you do it half-awake. It’s probably not a good idea to be using such sharp utensils as such a late hour, but you don’t care. You lift the chopping board and sweep the carrots into the bubbling, frothing contents smoothly, and then grab another carrot, topping and tailing it quickly.

The movement is comforting in its repetitiveness. The entire recipe is as familiar as breathing, and thankfully, it’s time consuming and just tricky enough to keep your exhausted mind off other things.

After the shocks and disappointments that have been lurking around every corner for you lately, the familiarity of simple beef stew is like coming home during a storm.

Like the soldier who had walked into the base just a few weeks before. You knew him. You more than knew him. You knew him better than anyone did. You knew his scars, his ways, his triggers, his quirks.

And yet he was adamant that you didn't.

It's Jack Morrison. Of that you are sure.

And no mask or alias is going to convince you that this grumpy vigilante isn’t the ex Strike Commander of Overwatch.

However, you weren’t sure of anything else. Everything you knew about him seemed to have been uprooted that first time you saw him striding down the corridor, falling into step between Ana and Angela. 

You could tell from the looks that they gave him, the way that Ana would duck her head when talking to him, the way Angela would show a range of emotions other than comforting and calm when talking to him, that they knew him. 

And you knew him too.

And so, here you are. Making beef stew at 3am, trying to tear your mind from thoughts that only depress and scare you.

You drop the carrot into the pot and stir it gently. It’s simmering, and the rich scent of the mingling flavours would usually make you hungry, but…you haven’t been eating much lately. It’s not for lack of hunger, but for the fact that every time you try to eat something, your stomach will clench hard, and you’ll feel as though any food that makes it to your oesophagus will just be rejected.

Drumming your fingers on the countertop distractedly, you sniff the stew again, chewing the inside of your cheek. Usually you would taste it, but it’s as though a rock has settled at the back of your throat, rendering you unable to swallow.

The door creaks softly as it opens, and shuts with a soft hiss. Glancing over your shoulder, you expect to see the frightened face of a younger cadet trying to sneak in to get a midnight snack, or maybe a senior member with the same goal.

Instead, the sight that greets you makes your heart ache.

Jack.

The sight of him hesitating in the doorway draws your mind back to the last time the two of you had been in the kitchen together.

_”Jack, stop, you’ll make me spill it!”_  
_“Put it down and let me kiss you then,”_  
_“No, because if I give in and put it down, I know I won’t be picking it up again until it’s cold!”_  
_“Let it go cold then. Who needs dinner when I have the sweetest dessert right here?”_

You shiver, almost able to feel the phantom brush of his fingertips on your thigh.

You look away just as he steps in, walking slowly over to you. Desperate to distract yourself, you grab an onion and begin slicing it, barely missing your fingers with the blade multiple times.

“You’re up late,” he says.

“Or early,” you say, gesturing at the clock with your knife, “depending on how you look at it,”

He leans back against the countertop.  
“What are you doing?” he asks gruffly. The familiarity of the voice makes your stomach clench, but the alien indifference makes your eyes sting with tears, which you mentally blame on the onion. That voice is the one that had held nothing but words of love and encouragement. Not anymore.

“I’m planning a heist,” you reply sarcastically, sweeping the finely chopped onions into the pot, “what does it look like?”

He says nothing for a few minutes.

“You should be asleep, you know that right? I’m sure you have training or something in the morning,”

You glare at him over your shoulder.  
“I could say the same to you, Jack,”

He visibly stiffens.  
“That’s not my name,” he says, voice low and tinged with warning. You don’t care. You turn the heat down to let the broth simmer, and turn to face him properly, mirroring his stance, spreading your legs slightly, folding your arms, and squaring your shoulders.

“Soldier,” you spit, “that’s what you’re going by now, isn’t it?”

His visor flashes, and he folds his arms a little tighter. Everything about his stance screams defensive and intimidating.

“Soldier 76,” he replies in a steely tone, “but if you’re so adamant to not play by the rules, Soldier will suffice,”

You scoff.  
“Did Strike Commander get too outdated for you? Did it hold too much responsibility?”

“Watch it,”

You push yourself off the counter, squaring up to him, not backing down.  
“Were you scared? Scared about what the reaction would be when Strike Commander Morrison, hailing hero of Overwatch, came stumbling back through the rubble, as triumphant as the day he was appointed?”

“I said _watch it_ “

“Or were you just sick of all those responsibilities? You just wanted to go off an chase petty criminals wildly and be edgy and mysterious while not giving a flying _fuck_ about all the people you left behind?!”

He moves quickly, as if to attack you, and you immediately flinch back, knocking your hip against the countertop and drawing a gasp of pain from your lips. Jack’s shoulders are shaking slightly, whether with rage or grief, you can’t tell.

You rub the smarting area on your hip, glaring at him.  
“Take the damn mask off,” you snap, “I can't read a thing with it on,”

He’s silent, and then inhales deeply.

“What’s makes you think you’d be able to read my expressions, with or without the mask?” 

His voice catches you off guard. It’s not angry, or pained, or even sarcastic. It’s dismissive. It cuts you right to the bone, and makes your heart sing with pain because the Jack you know would _never_ shove you down so brutally.

Maybe this isn’t the Jack you know.

You stare at him, open mouthed, wide eyed, speechless. He watches you, not moving, not speaking. Just watching.

You hang your head, letting your arms drop limply to your sides.

“I knew you, Jack,” you say softly, letting your eyes fall shut so tears don’t spill down your cheeks, “I could take one glance at you and tell what you were thinking. I could read your actions. I knew what smiles you used for the cameras, and which ones you saved for the people closest to you. I saw you in your most vulnerable moments, and I let you see me in mine,” you raise your eyes to his mask, fixing them on the red glow of his visor, “you’re not the Jack I know. I’m sorry,”

You turn around again, picking up the spoon with shaking hands and stirring the broth. The smell of it makes you feel sick now.

“I could look at every scar on your body and tell you how you got it,” you say quietly, struggling to keep your voice steady. Jack remains silent, but there’s a soft rustling, and out of the corner of your eye, you see his shoulders slacken, and his arms fall to his sides.

“Not every scar,” he says, and you inhale and exhale heavily. You turn around and march over to him, hold your hand out expectantly. 

“Give me your hand,”

He doesn’t move for a minute, then holds his arm out, hesitantly, as though you're going to bite it off. You take a hold of his wrist, and pull his glove off. He tries to pull back, but you keep a firm hold on his arm, discarding the glove on the countertop. 

Your eyes search the back of his hand quickly, and you find what you’re looking for immediately. A scar, silvery and faded with age, runs across the back of his hand, from the jut of his wrist bone to the third knuckle of his index finger. You tap it gently.

“This scar. It was Christmas day, and you were helping me in the kitchen. I was telling you that I didn’t need any help, and saying you’d only get in my way, but you were insistent. You went to grab the oven gloves, and you knocked your hand against the saucepan of gravy. You burnt the skin right off, and you swore like I’d never heard you swear before. You joked that I’d need to hold your wine glass to your lips for you to drink because your hand was so heavily bandaged,”

You don’t look up at him, you pull his hand slightly towards you, and push his sleeve up, exposing the tapered end of another long, thin scar, on the back of his arm

“You came back with this one after a mission in Venice,” you say, staring hard at it as your eyes blur, “you had been chasing a criminal through the streets, and you leapt down into one of the boats in the canal. You slipped and cut your arm on a loose mooring nail sticking out of the wall,” you tap the end of the scar, and then trace it knowingly to the middle of his forearm, “it ends just there,"

“You could be guessing,” he says, and anger flares in your chest. Your eyes snap up to his visor, and you glare at him fiercely.  
“How the hell could I guess something so detailed?” you demand, shoving his hand away from you, “why would I make myself look like an idiot if I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that’s where the scars came from?!”

He stares at you, and then, slowly, raises his hands to the mask. His fingers hook into it, and there’s a soft click as it detaches. He pulls it away from his face, slowly, eyes shut, eyelashes splayed out on his cheeks.

His skin is paler, but still smooth and soft. The creases of his forehead and the corners of his eyes have grown more pronounced, but the laugh lines either side of his mouth have faded. One scar cuts diagonally across his lips, and the other runs parallel to its twin, starting on his cheek, running dangerously close to the corner of his eye, and slicing across his forehead. Other smaller scars litter his face, and when he opens his eyes, they’re bright and blue and exactly how you remember them.

“Tell me how I got these ones then,”

He’s barely changed. He’s grown older, of course, but he hasn’t changed. 

Except for those scars.

You stare at him, open mouthed, and then shake your head.

“I-I can’t,” you whisper, “I don’t know,”

It’s like a test of faith, and you’ve failed. You said you knew his scars. But you don’t. Things have happened to him, things you know nothing about.

He’s not the Jack you know.

You raise your hands to your face, covering your eyes, your whole body shaking like a leaf. You wait for the tread of footsteps carrying this masked stranger away from you.

But they don’t come.

Instead, he sighs heavily, and moves closer to you. He stops close enough for you to feel the heat coming from his body, but not quite touching you. His bare fingertips ghost over the skin of your forearm, and then he pulls your hands from your face. Rolling your sleeve up a little more, to the crease of your elbow, he touches a tiny slit of a scar just below your sleeve.

“This scar,” he says gruffly, “you were in the hospital with pneumonia. You heard that Reinhardt had tried to visit you, and had been denied access on account of the fact he wasn’t family,” he raises his head a little, so his piercing blue eyes stare straight into yours, “you weren’t having any of that, so you leapt out of bed and tore the drip from your arm and chased after him, right into the waiting room,”

You don’t realise tears are running down your face until an ugly sob forces its way up your throat. 

In a move that’s halting and hesitant, he raises his un-gloved hand to your cheek, gently laying his palm against your skin. Without realising, you lean into his touch, lips trembling, sniffing hard. His thumb strokes over your cheekbone.

“This tiny one here,” he says, his thumb touching a point on the height of your cheekbone, “chicken pox scar,”

You nod, letting your eyes fall shut and tilting your head up slightly.

“Jack,”

“(Y/n),"


End file.
